It's Like Chess
by LittleBlueNayru
Summary: War is.  Zelda knows this.


Disclaimer: I don't own Legend of Zelda.

Hm... this isn't a Random Humorous Oneshot or a Random Horror Oneshot... It's just a Random Oneshot.

Like, really random. I don't usually think of Zelda this way. She's a patriot, yes, and she loves her country, but I guess there's this part of me that thinks that because she's Wisdom and not Link or Ganondorf, there's this apathetic, calculating part of her...?

Okay, that didn't sound nice at all. But yeah.

I probably seem like some sort of weird chess nerd in this for including a chess term. It's true that I used to love chess, but I'm just an amateur. Anyway, a game is divided into three "parts": the opening, middlegame, and endgame. The opening is the setup of pieces, the middlegame is where all the intense fighting takes place, and the endgame is where your trying to back that king into the goddamnwouldhediealready corner so you can declare checkmate and win.

The type of opening I reference is called the _giuoco piano_, or "quiet game" in Italian. There are variations of giuoco piano, but each stems from the play of a center pawn, followed by a knight, followed by a bishop. It is "quiet" in that no bold moves are made nor pieces captured (usually). Also, a "hanging piece" is a piece that is not defended by any other piece. That is, the opponent can capture the piece and no piece would be able to capture in return.

* * *

It's Like Chess

The Crown Princess of Hyrule sat upon a rickety wooden chair in one of Kakariko's many houses, studying the chessboard in front of her.

Her gloved hands were laced together by interlocking fingers, upon which she gracefully rested her chin, eying the symbolic army with cool concentration and a tinge of amusement.

And he had been playing so _well_ before, too.

"Oh, Ganondorf," she muttered sardonically, the hint of a grin on her face. "That was a stupid, stupid move."

Lifting her chin and unlacing her fingers, Zelda lowered her right hand over the board and gently nudged a black knight over to the space a white one occupied, daintily picking the white knight up and depositing it on the sidelines of the board so it could watch the slow, inevitable downfall of its King.

"I'm wondering," Zelda said, a light smile on her face, "If we should switch colors. But never mind... Even with the blackest heart, white _does_ always move first."

She grinned. It bordered on a smirk.

"But then again, your _giuoco piano_ was your only sophisticated move." King of the Gerudo he may be, but he had no class. Chess was a game for the noble, the refined. Zelda tried to be prudent, considerate, and fair, but she could not stop the stray thought that wondered if the Gerudo in general simply lacked class.

"You played so well before you made your intentions known... and then you just fell apart... Tell me, Ganondorf, have you ever actually studied how to do _anything_ past the beginning? I commend your follow-through, but your play has become simply _sloppy_."

Sloppy indeed, ruining her bright green fields with the blood of people, monsters, harmless creatures.

"Not even I could see we were playing at first. When I discovered we were, I thought you a challenge. Oh, and you kept yourself marvelously well hidden, too."

Yes, his pawns had moved with secrecy, so much secrecy. The Queen had stayed back, far back, waiting, biding her time. The immature fragment of Zelda's mind noted that Ganondorf was the Queen. An even more immature part noticed that he was both King and Queen. Head figure ruling his campaign and the general leading it. Zelda grinned.

"And then you finally began playing with your pawns; you even beat my own, but then again, what were they but pawns? I knew the Hylian _Knights_ couldn't hope to compete with you when my dear late father sent them after you and yours. But did you ever think of them as sacrifices? As pawns, what they truly were? Perhaps... Your own pawns are far more numerous than my own, to be sure... why worry about pawns when you can summon them from nothingness?"

Zelda urged a white pawn forward, attacking a black horse.

"That's why I got myself a _knight_..."

The Black Knight evaded the attack, taking down a carelessly placed Rook, a simple hanging piece.

"...that your own feeble copy could never hope to match."

Zelda's thoughts briefly became immersed with her Hero. She had met him, gained his alliance, sent him across the wide lands of Hyrule to do as she ordered. Politics were so lovely, so hateful. Only fools were persuaded by pleas, tears, _emotions_. Trivial definitions of "good" and "evil".

Which, exactly, was why _she_ was the Bearer of Wisdom. The Triforce thrummed contentedly in her right hand, assuring her that yes, that was why.

"Your middlegame disgusts me, Ganondorf. Slaughter, screams, bloodshed everywhere. You have taken what is mine," she glanced at her own captured Rook lurking behind the board, "and made it your own, forcing me to hide." She flicked her eyes down to her castled King, far from harm's way.

Zelda sighed. "But such is this game. This is past the point of diplomacy, before the signed surrender, that barbaric part in the middle called _war_, where fire falls from the sky and swords clash between warriors. Which is exactly why I'm not there."

Hiding in Kakariko and the Temple of Time often gave her cabin fever. That's why she prized her second Knight.

Her piercing blue eyes focused on it for a moment before she jotted down a note on a little slip of paper and stood up, pink dress flowing beautifully with her refined figure. "It would appear that my Knight has reclaimed the Water Temple," she whispered to the empty room, gaze fixed intensely on the white pieces, most particularly the White Bishop along the white-squared diagonal cornered by a certain Hero's Black Knight.

"Now, all he needs to deal with is that ridiculous shadow in the well you helped unleash, along with those pathetic twin witch godmothers of yours," she breathed. "And we'll take your Rook, your _Castle_, and my King and Sage Queen and Knight will decimate your forces until none remain to decimate, and we will come for you, find you, and utterly _destroy_ you."

And with a flourish of magic, Zelda shed her identity as King of her forces and assumed that of her prized second Knight, her freeing form of Sheik. This would be one of the last times she danced in erratic patterns as a messenger, a servant of good evading enemy fire. Soon she could sacrifice this piece, place her own King in great danger, trick the Queen into luring in the Hero and Sages by luring in Ganondorf.

The middlegame would wreak havoc on both sides, certainly. Ganondorf's countless forces would need replacing thrice a day if not more thanks to the valiant ceaseless efforts of Link, and Zelda's beloved land would lay barren under Ganondorf's cruel fist.

But the game would play out, as games always did, and when both sides had only a few pieces remaining, the Queen would fall, leaving only the King, only mindless Ganon, and the Sages and Zelda and Link would all come together and deal him the final blow. Sheik was gone, Hyrule Castle was gone, Hyrule Field lay burning, and the people cowered in pain and fear, but when Ganondorf fell, the game would be over, and Zelda would be the victor.

And then it would be time to put away the pieces until the next game.

Sheik idly wondered if Link would consider such heartless logic insane, or wise. Oh, well. As if it mattered anyway. They had a war to win.

* * *

They won.

Buildings, stronger than ever, sprouted up like dandelion weeds in a newer, larger Castle Town. The large plains grew green and lush once again, free of parasitic monsters, undesirables. As the only heir left to the Hyrule Throne, Zelda rarely had time to herself, to reflect upon the long struggles and of her parting with Link and the Sages, but she had found some time in her schedule to take a leisurely stroll to Kakariko Village, unaccompanied by guards, perfectly safe on her own. Even as Princess, she still carried a concealed knife or two on her, in case of a freak attack.

She was wise, after all.

She opened the door to Impa's private home and made her way up the stairs to the room that had been hers while she hid from Ganondorf's reign. For a moment, she simply stood in the doorway as the room's stillness tried in vain to freeze her in time, transport her back to an era history books would someday immortalize with fear and awe.

Her bed still lay unmade, quilts tossed around, from the last time she had woken in it, racing to meet the Hero in the Temple of Time after a premonition dream. The cupboard and dresser held the exact same ornaments, the same garments of clothing, the same homey feel that Zelda was no longer entitled to. The circular table still stood in the center of the room with one rickety wooden chair, in the exact position she had pushed it from standing up and becoming Sheik for the final time. The chessboard remained untouched, few pieces remaining.

Suddenly, Zelda was seized by a sort of euphoria, a sort of greed. They had won the battle months ago, and she had never celebrated. The Princess had been too busy struggling to lift her languishing nation back onto its feet almost entirely by herself. She hastily strode over to the chessboard, raised her delicate gloved hand shining with the Goddesses' emblem, and smacked the pieces away.

The White King and Queen flew clear across the room, colliding with the wall rather loudly. The ivory cracked in multiple places, severing the cross from the King's crown. Link's ebony Knight sailed towards the dresser and rolled away into oblivion underneath it. Sheik's obsidian one fell underneath the table. On the board remained only her Black King and Black Queen.

Her soldiers were gone, Sheik was nothing more than a fading illusion, her towns were growing once again from the earth, and her Hero had been sent to a different time and sealed away in his own way. What was not needed was coolly cut away, without whining, tears, or needless conference. Zelda crouched, and began to pick up the pieces, laying them gently into the box. After a moment of thought, she replaced the Black King and Black Queen to their original positions on the board.

She was stable. Unconquerable. Eternal. And, most of all, victorious.

Once again, as she had many times before, Zelda neatly turned on her heel to leave the room and make her way back to Castle Town, where her pawns -guards- were surely running about like headless Cuccos, panicked about her absence. Her dressed fluttered and twirled about her feet, and waved regally as she marched the march of the invincible to the room's doorway.

There she paused, and took one glance back in the empty room back at the space Ganondorf occupied as they made war with each other.

"You see, Ganondorf. It's like chess."


End file.
